Dillard’s

LA Fitness at Westfield Southgate will celebrate its grand opening on June 3.

The event, which runs from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., is open to the public.

Guests are invited to bring workout clothes and participate in a complimentary workout.

The fitness center will hold a boot camp clinic with its personal-training staff at 11 a.m., a Zumba class at noon and a basketball free throw event at 2 p.m. Face painting and balloon twisting will be available for children from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

LA Fitness had soft open at the end of April in the mall’s former Dillard’s anchor space.

This is one of eight opening events planned at the high-end shopping center at the intersection of U.S. 41 and Siesta Drive. Cravings coffee shop opened at the beginning of May. Lucky’s Market, Connor’s Steak and Seafood, L’Core Spa, Metro Diner, Naples Flatbread and Wine Bar and a new concept from Bravo Brio Restaurant Group are also slated to join the mall.

The retail blows just keep on coming, and this time JCPenney stores are taking the hit.

The department store chain announced Friday that it plans to close 130 to 140 stores and two distribution centers, including one in Lakeland. It’s unclear if our JCPenney stores at Westfield Sarasota Square or DeSoto Square Mall are on the chopping block. The company plans to make that announcement in March.

But the loss of either JCPenney could mean a new life or a major upset for either mall property.

Department store anchors were once a focal point of the American shopping mall, but as brick-and-mortar retail has struggled and consumerism has evolved following the Great Recession, that’s not the case anymore.

Now, really, all they’re doing is keeping these malls anchored in the past.

There are plenty of companies that have managed to weather the new retail climate. They’re just not the ones we traditionally see anchoring shopping centers and they don’t need nearly as much space as Macy’s, Sears or JCPenney required in their heyday. Thriving players such as Ulta Beauty or a TJ Maxx could share JCPenney’s 103,162 square feet of space at DeSoto Square Mall easily, and have space leftover to bring in some restaurants or a fitness center.

But stronger retailers don’t necessarily want to bite at a desolate indoor property when consumers are more interested in shopping at mixed-use, lifestyle centers where they can live, work and play.

The Macy’s space at DeSoto Square has been vacant since the department store brand left for the new Mall at University Town Center in 2014. The shopping center’s management told the Herald-Tribune in December that DeSoto Square had been sold and that the new owners had plans to turn the empty department store into a new wing of the mall, but we haven’t seen any movement on that yet. The mall has since been relisted as pending on the Hakimi Properties website, where it had disappeared entirely at the end of last year.

That Macy’s spot doesn’t seem to have the brightest of futures.

And I can’t think of any reason the JCPenney spot would be any different.

I’ve got a little more faith in Sarasota Square because Westfield has a track record of filling in blank spaces. They knocked down the empty Dillard’s anchor and brought in Costco Wholesale in 2012, and today the mall’s sister property, Westfield Southgate, has a luxury movie theater where Saks Fifth Avenue once stood.

Macy’s, too, is closing its Sarasota Square store in the coming weeks, and while we haven’t seen a formal plan for that space Jim Ralston, the mall’s general manager, told me this week that Westfield has ideas for it and plans to purchase it.

One empty anchor shouldn’t drag the mall down.

But three might.

Macy’s is on its way out, JCPenney might be and I can’t imagine that Sears has much more life in it.

Sears also has been closing stores throughout the country, and while it hasn’t announced a Sarasota shuttering, the department store hasn’t been aggressive about restocking its merchandise. There are gaps in the technology department and shoe department that have lingered just too long after the Christmas shopping season not to notice.

JCPenney, Sears, Macy’s and their parking lots take up 25 acres at the corner of U.S. 41 and Beneva Road. That has the potential to be one of the largest retail gaps in Sarasota, or a site to experiment with.

But one thing is for sure, these traditional anchors just don’t carry the weight they once did. That Macy’s at Sarasota Square seems busier during its closeout sale than it has in its recent history.

DeSoto Square Mall has changed hands again, and the shopping center’s new owner is planning to invest millions in bringing the struggling retail hub back to life.

Mall manager Don Burrow confirmed on Monday that the Bradenton mall had been sold.

Burrow said he could not disclose the terms of the deal or the name of the buyer, but he said the new owner is expected to take possession of DeSoto Square on Dec. 22.

Officials with Great Neck, New York-based Mason Asset Management, the property’s previous owner, could not be immediately reached Monday for comment.

The mall had been on the market since this summer.

The new owner has plans to invest millions of dollars into turning the shopping center into a family-focused retail center and has developed an aggressive eight- to 10-month revitalization plan, Burrow said.

DeSoto Square’s movie theater, which had operated as a second-run venue until it closed earlier this spring, will be renovated and will reopen as a first-run theater by mid-2017. The vacant Macy’s anchor space will get an overhaul and will be reopened as a new wing of the mall, Burrow said.

Burrow said mall management is in talks with several prospective tenants, but he couldn’t identify the companies until deals are finalized.

DeSoto Square Mall has traditionally been the weakest shopping mall player in the Sarasota-Bradenton market. Mason Asset Management bought the property in 2012 from Simon Property Group for a bargain at $24.6 million after Simon let a $62 million loan on the mall fall into arrears.

Mason could have pocketed about $9 million in gross profit had it taken the high bid of $33.75 million during in a three-day online auction in August 2014.

The four-decade-old mall was 71 percent occupied when Mason put it on the market. Sears, which occupies 100,000 separately owned square feet of the mall, and JC Penney are longtime anchors.

Hudson’s Furniture moved into the once-vacant Dillard’s site in 2014, but the former Macy’s space has been empty since the department store left the mall in 2014.

The National Retail Federation is estimating that 108.5 million Americans shopped online over the long weekend, which toppled the 99.1 million who braved the brick-and-mortar stores.

The online offers started coming early last week, but the email bombardment truly hit Wednesday and continued into Cyber Monday. Online consumers were pelted with buy-one-get-one messages, coupons, promotional codes, discounts, free shipping and absurd savings.

I got more Thanksgiving greetings from Ulta, Amazon.com, Macy’s and Target, among others, than I did from my own family.

Even so, overall spending was down, with the average consumer paying out $289.19 compared with $299.60 last year, according to a survey from the federation.

It was a dynamic weekend for retailers, but an even better weekend for consumers. More than a third of shoppers reported that 100 percent of their purchases were on sale, and that likely took a bite out of overall totals.

While we couldn’t see that firsthand for online shoppers, we certainly saw shoppers braving the crowds at brick-and-mortar stores for deals.

It started with the doorbuster-style hordes on Thanksgiving night. Target, Macy’s, JCPenney, Best Buy and Kohl’s all had impressive crowds waiting for their holiday shopping kickoffs.

The line at Target on University Parkway had more than 250 people a half hour before the store opened at 6 p.m. That line snaked all the way around the Chipotle and to GameStop, and it likely grew even more in the minutes leading up to the opening. Down the street at Kohl’s, the crowd stretched nearly out to University Parkway.

The chaos tapered as Thanksgiving turned into Black Friday itself.

The survey found that about 29 percent of shoppers headed out after 10 a.m. on Black Friday, up from 24 percent last year. Fewer than 15 percent of consumers arrived at the stores by 6 a.m. or earlier on Black Friday.

Most stores in Southwest Florida were fairly manageable in the early hours of what’s traditionally been called the biggest shopping holiday of the year.

Until they weren’t.

Old Navy and Best Buy at University Parkway were swamped by mid-afternoon. One customer told me she actually ordered her items online from inside the store. It was easier to wait a couple days for an iPad or a new dress than wait in those lines. Plus both retailers were offering online promotions with free shipping, so I’m sure she wasn’t the only shopper who took that route.

If parking in that shopping center was a chore (which is was), it was nothing compared to the Mall at University Town Center. The two-year-old mall’s lot was full by 3 p.m. and cars had started spilling into the grassy area on the south end between Dillard’s and Nathan Benderson Park.

The crowds tamed slightly into Saturday, but most parking lots and storefronts were bustling. The exception being Westfield Southgate, which has struggled following the opening of the UTC. The mall, which is in the middle of construction, was a ghost town in the early afternoon, and employees at that Macy’s, specifically, looked bored.

I looped up Tamiami Trail into downtown Sarasota, and took a lap around the Burns Court area. Even most of the boutiques there had hearty crowds for Small Business Saturday. On a couple occasions, I even had to wait a few minutes for a dressing room, which is a rarity at a lot of Southwest Florida’s smaller businesses.

People were out, and people were spending.

And they’re not done yet.

That National Retail Federation survey also shows only 9 percent of consumers have finished up their holiday shopping.

I’m not one of them, and odds are that you aren’t either.

I’ve got a few more stops to make and more emails to open before I can cross everyone off my holiday list.

My credit card and I are both tired. And that’s OK. There’s no need to panic yet.

Brookstone and Shoe Diva are the newest retailers to open in Southgate Mall, which has seen well-known national chains leave for the newly opened Mall at University Town Center.

Meanwhile, employees at one of the mall’s anchors, Dillard’s, said the department store would be closing next month.

Earlier this week,Westfield Group, the mall’s owner, announced that a Cobb CineBistro plans to open a seven-screen theater in the former shell of Southgate’s former Saks Fifth Avenue.

Brookstone, which sells electronics and other lifestyle merchandise, opened a pop-up store for the holidays inside the space left vacant by Restoration Hardware.

The temporary store takes up maybe a third of the space, and has blankets, headphones and variety of electronics and accessories for sale. The chain has stores in most of the major malls in the Tampa Bay area, but the Southgate site is the only store in Southwest Florida.

Employees said the store will close after the holidays this year. Last year, Toys R Us set up a pop-up shop inside the space for the holidays.

Meanwhile, SRV Calendar & Games will soon open inside the former Williams-Sonoma Space and Shoe Diva, a new shoe store that sells men’s and women’s shoes, has opened inside the former Banana Republic space.

The Dillard’s, one of two remaining anchors at the 421,778-square-feet center at Tamiami Trail and Bee Ridge Road, will close next month, employees confirmed. The store has been bare since the chain’s new department store opened at the Mall at University Town Center last month. Dillard’s has also limited its hours. The store opens at noon.

Last month, Benderson Development, one of the co-developers of the Mall at University Town Center, bought the 97,000-square-foot Dillard’s shell.

For more shopping news in Southwest Florida, follow reporter Justine Griffin on Twitter and Facebook or email her at justine.griffin@heraldtribune.com. Read What’s In Store in print on Tuesdays.

Westfield Group’s Southgate Mall was quiet on Wednesday despite the many changes already taking place within what has always been Sarasota’s premier mall.

With just a little more than a week left before the brand new $315 million Mall at University Town Center opens at University Parkway and Interstate 75 on Oct. 16, retailers at Southgate Mall are closing or preparing to close as they transition to the new center. Meanwhile a few other brands, like Brookstone and SRV Calendar & Gifts, are opening in some national chain’s former spaces.

Saks Fifth Avenue closed its resort-style 40,000-square-foot store inside Southgate Mall today. It originally opened in Southgate in 1996. No special sales were offered on Wednesday despite the move. Racks were full and nothing seemed out of place either. Employees confirmed that all merchandise from the Southgate Mall location will be moved to the new 80,000-square-foot two-store store at the Mall at UTC Wednesday evening and through the rest of the week.

The brand new Saks store will feature an expanded women’s shoe boutique, 10022-SHOE; an enhanced men’s section; and an exclusive in-house restaurant called Sophies, among other features.

Meanwhile at Dillard’s, the department store was nearly bare. Several sections had no merchandise at all and empty shelves and naked mannequins stood in tight groups in different corners of the store. More merchandise is still coming in, employees said, but all signs point to the store closing. Dillard’s is offering sales of 40 to 65 percent off merchandise in all departments.

It is unclear at this time when Dillard’s will close in Southgate Mall.

Earlier this week, Benderson Development closed on a $10 million deal for the 97,000-square-foot store. No new tenant for the space has been announced. Dillard’s will have a 180,000-square-foot, two-story anchoring space inside the new Mall at UTC. The majority of the Southgate Mall’s staff will move with it.

The mall aisle was quiet and few shoppers browsed the retailers on Wednesday around midday. Mayors Jewelers’ space was shuttered and empty.A sign on the glass doors encouraged shoppers to visit the store inside the new mall.The store closed on Oct. 4.

Williams-Sonoma, too, had closed. In its place was a sign that read: “Coming soon, SRV Calendar & Games.”

Southgate’s Gap store was still open on Wednesday, but a banner across the store’s glass walls read “We’re moving to the Mall at University Town Center. Come visit our new store.”

The former Restoration Hardware space had a sign on it that read: “Opening soon, Brookstone.” Last year, Toys R Us set up a pop-up shop inside the space for the holidays. Restoration Hardware left the mall in September 2011 and the space has sat vacant ever since — despite being next to two of Southgate’s highest-performing tenants.

Brookstone is a national retail chain that sells electronics and other lifestyle items like speakers, alarm clocks, massage chairs, blankets and pillows. The company has stores in most of the major malls in the Tampa Bay area, but this will be the first to open in Southwest Florida.

To see a full list of retailers coming to the Mall at University Town Center, click here.

The Herald-Tribune reported stores like Tommy Bahama, Brooks Brothers and others will open in the Mall at University Town Center last year. The 880,000-square-foot retail center will open October 16.

For more shopping news in Southwest Florida, follow reporter Justine Griffin on Twitter and Facebook or email her at justine.griffin@heraldtribune.com. Read What’s In Store in print on Tuesdays.